Chapter Twenty-Six
“You and Eleni made quite the splash with Mom and Alaina,” Edward observed as the two of them drove through the moonlit night toward the old ranch land north of Dallas.
The hum of the big diesel truck engine was soothing. Jason was finally beginning to feel relaxed after that horrible farce of a dinner at their mother’s house. “Do you feel at home in that house anymore?” Jason suddenly asked his brother. “I mean, when you go there do you feel like it’s a place that you can be comfortable and welcome?”
Edward glanced over from the driver’s seat as though he were trying to decide whether or not Jason seriously expected a response to that. Finally Edward gave a shake of his head. “No. Not really. It’s not our home. In some ways I don’t feel like it ever was. We could swim in the pool as long as we didn’t leave toys around. There was absolutely no playing in any part of the downstairs of the house. We weren’t allowed to watch television down there, get a snack in the kitchen, or pretty much anything else that would make a house feel like home. Right?”
“Right.” Good. Jason could not help but be relieved because there was a part of him that had always worried this had been behavior exclusive to him. Like the rest of his siblings had been welcome in their mother’s house and he had not been.
They turned off the main highway and headed down the two-lane dirt road that would eventually lead to the cattle guard that heralded the entrance to the old King homestead. So much of the land had been sold off over the years. But the remaining hundred acres was considered the original land parcel. There was a house where their father had grown up and where their grandfather had lived until his death. If their mother had her way they would be tearing it down soon enough.
“Do you see anyone else?” Edward asked suddenly. “I thought Orion, Devon, and Zane were going to meet us. Orion said they had some things to finish up at the office and then they would head out.”
“I don’t see any other headlights, but I do see something that bothers me.” Jason gave a little growl as he realized there was a whole pack of flatbed semi trailers with earth-moving equipment strapped to the surface.
Edward made a low noise of disapproval. “That’s not good.”
Pulling the truck beneath the big tooled sign, Edward hit the accelerator and sent them roaring off toward the house. It was just a dark A-framed shape in the distance. The house was old. So old that Tisha had declared that she would never live there during her marriage to Mac King. But Jason loved the place. He loved everything about it. He loved the creaky wrap-around porch and the fact that all of the rooms on the second floor had slanted ceilings. He loved the single window air conditioner that caused the family to gather in the little front room every single night because there was no place else to escape the heat. It was a perfect place to raise a family, especially a family like theirs that needed a lot of space to run.
Edward’s big truck slid to a halt in front of the house. There was another vehicle there. An SUV, smaller than Edward’s truck and expensive. It was Orion’s. The man had expensive taste in cars, which was okay since he could handle the payments on his salary.
“Okay,” Jason murmured. “There’s Orion’s car, so where are the others?”
Edward got out of his truck and slammed the door closed. “I don’t know, but I’m going to shift in order to find out. I’ll be able to smell them better that way and to track where they might have gone.”
“Good idea,” Jason agreed.
Jason had been shifting back and forth from man to wolf and back again for so long now that the process was almost second nature. In the last few days he had felt himself nearly bursting out of his human skin anyway. He always had the feeling that the wolf part of him was eager to run and play and exercise his legs. If Jason tried to suppress it for too long it only became harder and harder to maintain control when his emotions ran high.
As his nose elongated and his nails curved into claws, Jason had the thought that their mother honestly believed that the five of them could just turn it off and forget about it. Almost as though this was just a skill that they could use or not instead of a way of being and an intrinsic part of their being.
Beside Jason, Edward was already sporting a pale gray coat on his enormous wolf body. Jason’s coat was jet black. They were both about triple the size of wild timber wolves. Their bodies were hard with lean muscle and absolutely enormous. Jason shook as his joints finished the change and he felt the urge to run nearly overcome him.
Edward lifted his muzzle to the sky and howled. The long note lifted into the night air and seemed to hover over the land that had been their territory for so very long. Jason lifted his nose and offered up his own howl. Then he cocked an ear and listened. If their brothers were anywhere near and could answer, then Edward and Jason should hear the eerie howling of the rest of their pack in just a few moments.
But there was no sound at all. Edward put his nose to the ground and began trying to sniff out a trail for Orion, Devon, or Zane. But Jason had already found it. Right beside the driver’s door of Orion’s SUV there was a spot where Orions’s human scent shifted to his wolf scent. It was an obvious thing to Jason. He had been smelling his brothers out for most of his life, since childhood when they’d been absolutely determined to leave the baby wolf at home.
Jason yipped to Edward and then took off running around the back of the house. The scent was strong and moments later Jason heard an answering bark from Edward as he let Jason know that he had found the trail also.
The two huge wolves, gray and black, bounded across the wide open space behind the house and headed for the cottonwoods that grew close around the creek bed. The pounding of their enormous paws on the terrain was music to Jason’s ears. He felt the wind ruffling his fur and tickling his ears. His nose was filled with the scents of sage and rabbit as his feet stirred up the dirt. Each foot left a little puff of dirt and scent as the wolves plowed through the wide open space.
Once they finally reached the trees, they had to slow down just a bit to prevent themselves from slamming into the tree trunks as they wound their way through. Left and right, dodging thick brambles and bits of thorny cactus, Edward and Jason moved toward the source of their brothers’ scents.
Jason was so thrilled with the sensation of running that he almost missed the strange change in the scent as they got closer to the creek. It was odd. He could still smell his brothers, but there was something else underlying their familiar trail.
Human.
Abruptly slowing, Jason whined to his brother Edward. Edward followed suit without question. He could smell it too. Jason trotted along and kept his body low to the ground as he moved in the direction of the smells. It was not long before he heard the sounds. Low laughter. The scent of fire. It was all there as though someone had set up a camp here on King land.
What. The. Hell? Jason felt his hackles rise as he considered the idea of trespassers on their land. Beside Jason, Edward uttered a low growl. Their brothers’ trail ended right here. The other wolves had to be nearby. As Jason’s preternaturally sharp senses cast about the creek area looking for his pack members, he began to worry that they had somehow gotten too close to the men and had somehow gotten caught.
Sinking down low, Jason began inching closer and closer to the makeshift camp on his belly. His claws pulled him along, his hind legs carefully propelling his body over the rough gravel and dirt terrain. He felt a few cactus spines catch in his fur. Ignoring the irritation, Jason kept his gaze on the camp and tried to take in as much as he could all at once.
The smell of fire was strong. There was a huge bonfire in the center of the camp itself. Six men sat around in canvas camp chairs. They appeared to be talking in low voices or sort of dozing in their chairs in the case of the two closest to Jason. Every one of them had a beer bottle in hand. The two sleeping men were barely still holding onto their bottles by the long necks. It looked as if the bottles could drop to the ground at any moment.
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br /> There was a pile of empties beside the fire. The haphazard collection of beer bottles was accentuated by several empty packages of what smelled like chocolate chip cookies. The scent of roasted meat also hung over the fire. There were several cots set back away from the bonfire and the chairs. Behind that Jason could see four different vehicles. They were each towing flatbed trailers. Most of the trailers had a collection of brush hogging implements on board. Obviously these men had been hired to stay here on the property and get ready for the order to begin clearing the land.
From what Jason could see so far, there had been no clearing going on. The trees and brush around the creek looked intact. Jason could smell the water running close. He could also smell his brothers. He just could not see them. Were they actually hiding in other places around this clearing?
“Hey, did you hear that?”
One man seemed far more alert than the others. It was probably because his personal pile of empties seemed to be considerably smaller than the others. He stood up and that was when Jason spotted the gun.
The man held a twenty gauge shotgun lightly in his hands. The way he handled the weapon suggested that he knew exactly how to use it and was comfortable doing so. That did not bode well for the wolves. The shot would not be likely to kill them, but it hurt like hell and it left a mark that continued onto their human bodies even once they had shifted.
Jason began backing away from the camp toward Edward. He could still smell his brother just behind him. Once the two of them were on their bellies side by side, Jason waited. Perhaps this was what was happening with their other brothers too. Maybe Orion, Devon, and Zane were all out there in the dark waiting to see what would happen.
Hours passed. Jason remained absolutely still. It was one of the first lessons their father had taught them. Silence. Patience. The ability to remain utterly still until the bugs were even crawling right over him because they did not realize he wasn’t part of the landscape. Soon enough a snake would come and curl up beside him for the warmth.
The fire died down. The flames had eaten up all of the dry wood the men had tossed onto the pile. The flickering orange sort of melted into the ashes and the glow of the flames on the shiny sides of the glass bottles was nearly invisible.
One of the men sleeping near the fire began to snore. His bottle hit the ground as his fingers relaxed to the point of limpness. As if that were some kind of signal, Jason watched his brothers seem to emerge from the inky black darkness on the opposite side of the creek as though they were shadows come to life. Three wolves stole their way closer and closer to the sleepy humans without making a single sound.
Edward nudged Jason. This was their moment as well. They could not speak to their brothers like this. Not in the traditional human sense. But the body language was all there and it was screaming loud and clear. Now. It was time.
Jason stood up and very carefully picked his way across the rocky, dirt-packed ground near the creek bed. The water was just a short distance away. It was so close that Jason could hear the trickle of liquid tumbling over the rocky bed and smell the brackish scent of the low water level.
As Jason watched, Orion leaped up onto one of the flatbeds. There was a bobcat strapped to the trailer. Before Jason could wonder what his eldest brother was doing, Orion shifted quickly to his human form. Using those oh so lovely opposable thumbs, Orion began to unfasten the tie downs.
Jason quickly got the idea. He leaped for the flatbed closest to him and shifted back to his human form. Using his hands, he unfastened the tie downs holding a line of side by side ATVs in place. The next step was obvious. It was simple to put the vehicles in neutral. Within moments Jason was back in his wolf form and Edward was right there beside him. The two of them used their enormous bulk to push at the ATVs even as Orion was preparing to start the bobcat in order to send it flying down off the flatbed and right into the fire.
This would be a night that the humans would never, ever forget.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Did you hear about that wolf attack out on a ranch north of the city last night?” Tom was so excited about this news he had to impart to his cronies that he nearly spilled his coffee right down the front of his shirt.
Lou looked as though he weren’t going to buy into the whole story just yet. “I heard about it. But I’ve yet to get a reliable report.” Lou gestured to the single television screen hanging over the coffee bar. “See? Look at those men they’re interviewing for the news! If you ask me, they probably didn’t put their equipment in neutral and stuck it on the trailer without even bothering to tie it down and now they’re looking for an excuse for why it was destroyed.”
Skye bit down on her lower lip so fiercely that she was pretty sure she was making a crease. Soon enough it would start bleeding. But maybe she didn’t care about that. Maybe she didn’t have time to care about that. She was too busy worrying about what she was hearing from just a few tables away.
A wolf attack? As in some men outside of town who were what? Just hanging around on some random property north of the city? That was preposterous! The King ranch was north of Dallas. There was no doubt in Skye’s mind that the developer probably had men on site to protect their interests and whatever equipment they had waiting to begin the clearing of the land.
“Hey.”
Skye could not process any more information right now. She kept thinking that Jason had been so angry about the possibility of their land being touched by some developer and possibly losing the place where the King Wolf Pack liked to run. So what if the men—er—shifters had decided to take matters into their own hands.
“Skye!”
She barely registered the sound of Lou calling her name. She was too busy trying to read the news scrolling across the bottom of the screen. Why did the stupid morning news have a segment on cooking? Why didn’t they just talk about the actual news and forget about the stupid stuff like the best way to separate an egg without losing quite so much of the white since apparently in this day and age of total health consciousness it was the yolk part that everyone tossed?
The words at the bottom of the televisions screen indicated that there had been reports of a wolf attack on the King Ranch late last night. Workmen had reported seeing a pack of wolves and were attempting to claim that the wolves were responsible for the destruction of some expensive construction equipment.
“That is just damned ridiculous!” Marvin muttered. He was pointing at the screen now. “How do wolves destroy equipment, I ask you? How? Did they use their paws to put the bobcat in neutral and then use their King Kong-style wolf bodies to push the thing into the fire? I think the men were drunk.” Marvin turned to Tom. “Did they say anything about alcohol being involved?”
“Would you two shut up?” Lou growled at his friends. “Look at poor Skye. She looks like she’s seen a ghost!”
“Skye?” Marvin was the one to try and get her attention this time. He waved his hand almost right in front of her nose. “Are you okay? I’m a bit worried about you. Are you feeling all right? I know it’s been a rough few days.”
That was a very odd sort of comment. A rough few days. What exactly was Marvin referring to? She drew her brows together and tilted her head to one side. She waited for him to say more, but Lou and Tom were busy hushing poor Marvin as though he’d just let some serious cat out of the bag.
“What?” Skye asked, looking suspiciously from one man to the next and back. “What are you guys hushing him for? Exactly what makes up a rough couple of days?”
Tom suddenly leaned over the table in front of him and put his elbows very firmly against the paper sitting on the tabletop. Skye abruptly forgot about the possibility of a wolf attack and started wondering what was in the paper this morning.
Wait. The paper. Skye leaned forward and snatched the paper right out from under Tom’s arms. “Is this the Dallas Star?”
“Well yes,” Tom admitted. He scratched the back of his neck.
Skye set the pap
er on her table and started shoving her way past the news of the day and the sports page. At the very back of the paper—which was not where the section had started out—Skye found the society section stuffed into the business section as though Tom had actually been trying to hide the thing.
Marvin cleared his throat. “We actually considered removing the section from all of the papers in the dispenser here in the shop. But then we realized that this would probably not help things any.”
“Probably not,” Skye murmured. She was busy staring at the society page and trying to register the byline. “Thank you, Carolyn Phillips. I really appreciate you deciding to go with the idiotic use of a mixture of truth and lies to make yourself a sensational piece of bullshit.”
Tom was blinking owlishly at her over the top of his glasses. “Is it true? Did you really get rescued when you were a baby because some homeless person was dumpster diving and found you in the bottom?
“No.” Skye put her hands over her face. “Oh God. This is horrible!”
Lou awkwardly patted her shoulder. “It’s not so bad. Really. It could be worse.”
“Really? How?” She turned to Lou and then pointed at the page. “People are reading this paper right now with their morning coffee or on their morning break. They are thinking to themselves that I am nothing but a loser who is somehow trying to push myself into the King family for some weird sort of personal gain.”
“I don’t think that Jason is going to appreciate the way that Carolyn has described him either,” Marvin pointed out. He put his index finger on a section of the long-winded column. “Right here it says that Jason is the least of the King sons. Not only the youngest, but also the least likely to make a name for himself or to do anything productive to carry on the family name.”
Skye snorted and felt probably angrier on Jason’s behalf than she did on her own. “It’s almost like Carolyn consulted Tisha Olivares-King before printing this. That’s something Jason’s mother would say about him. The woman is a horrible person. Just straight up mean.”
Billion Dollar Wolves: Boxset Bks 1-5 Page 20